In Plain Sight (20 page)

B
ecause I was still playing catch-up at the store, it was a little after two in the afternoon before I got a chance to call Marsha's mother. Once I managed to get through Nurse Ratchett, Mrs. Wise, or Nancy as she insisted on being called, was full of interesting surprises, the most interesting one being that her daughter had left late Saturday afternoon, not Sunday as the nurse had told me.

“Pearline wasn't here,” Mrs. Wise explained as I wound the telephone cord around my finger. Her voice was crisp, her dictation precise. A picture of a thin, patrician-looking lady, the obverse of pudgy, rumpled Marsha, rose before me. “She just made an assumption because that's how long Marsha usually stays.”

“But not this time.”

“No. Not this time. She wanted to get back early. Evidently she had things to do.”

“She didn't happen to say what things?” I asked as I pried a piece of paper out of Zsa Zsa's jaws.

Mrs. Wise paused for a second before continuing. “No, she didn't, and I didn't ask.” Another pause. I got the feeling she was choosing her words carefully. “Over the past three years I've learned not to pry too much. But I can tell you she seemed very excited.”

“She didn't ask you for money, did she?”

“No. She knew better. I'd stopped giving her any.” Mrs. Wise's voice grew hesitant. “Why? Did she need any? Was she in trouble?”

“I think she may have put herself in some.”

“She always made things hard for herself—always.” Mrs. Wise stopped talking again. This time the pause on the other end of the line was longer. “You know,” she finally said, “I thought I was doing the right thing not giving her any money. Everyone I talked to said not to. They said that no matter what she told me she'd just gamble it away. Maybe I shouldn't have listened to them.”

“No. I think what you did was correct,” I replied, trying to console her.

“I'm not so sure.” Marsha's mother's voice cracked. “She was my only child. And now she's gone. What do I do with the money now? Just answer me that?” She began to cry. Her sobs were dry and harsh.

Before I could think of anything to say the nurse came on the line and told me I had no business upsetting Mrs. Wise like that. Then she hung up.

“So?” Tim said. He'd been following the conversation as he restocked the doggie biscuit bins that sat over by the side of the counter.

I reached for a cigarette and took a sip of the coffee I'd poured myself half an hour ago and forgotten about. “When I first spoke to Merlin he told me that Marsha had come back on Sunday. Now it turns out she was back on Saturday night. Why should he lie?”

“Maybe he didn't.” Tim emptied the last of the small doughnut-shaped biscuits out of the carton and straightened up. “Maybe Marsha didn't go home. Maybe she stayed somewhere else.”

“I bet it was at Brandon Funk's house,” I murmured.

“So?”

“So nothing. I just want to know why he didn't mention it.” I looked at my watch. It was three. Funk would probably still be at Wellington. I was sure I could catch him among his mops and pails, but after a moment's thought I decided to wait till later in the evening. I still had too much work to do around the shop.

I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking the shipment of dog food we'd just gotten in, listening to our macaw sing the first two lines of “When The Saints Come Marching In” over and over, waiting on customers, and fending off a salesman who wanted to sell me homemade kibble.

“Just try some,” he urged. “See.” He put a few pieces in his mouth. “It's good. I eat it all the time.”

I resisted the temptation and gave it to Zsa Zsa instead. She spit it out.

Around five I lay down and took a nap. Tim woke me at five-thirty to tell me I had a call.

“Tell them I'll call back.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“It's Fast Eddie.”

“Jesus.” I jumped up and reached for the phone on the desk. I could hear Fast Eddie's wheeze through the wire.

“So how's it coming?” he whispered.

“It's coming,” I said, even though it wasn't.

“Good. That's what I like to hear.” Then he started to cough. “You'll call me and let me know how things are going,” he said when the spasm had passed.

“Of course.”

“Because I'm trying to clean up a lot of odds and ends. I don't like things messy.” He hung up the phone.

“Nice company you're keeping these days,” Tim observed as I replaced the receiver.

“Tell me about it.” I'd been thinking of going home and going to bed instead of going out to Funk's house, but Fast Eddie's call had made me change my mind. I spent the rest of the evening wishing Marsha had never come into the store.

Nine o'clock arrived quicker than I thought it would. I said goodbye to Tim, locked up the shop, took Zsa Zsa home, and headed over to Brandon Funk's house. It was warm out and I rolled down the window. At the corner of Genesee and Cherry a police car sprang out of nowhere and sped past me, siren blaring. The Cherry Hill apartments, a monolith of poured concrete and brick, stared down from the hill. On the corner five teenagers lounged against a lamppost passing a bottle cloaked in a brown paper bag back and forth. Their hoots echoed through the night air—the only sign of life on the deserted streets. Or maybe the streets were deserted because of them.

It took me twenty minutes to get to Funk's house. He didn't look happy to see me when he answered the bell.

“What do you want?” he said. He was wearing a dirty T-shirt and smelled of beer.

“To talk to you.”

His mouth took on a stubborn twist. “Why should I?”

“Because I think we have something to discuss.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that Marsha spent Saturday here with you.”

“So what if she did?” Funk crossed his arms over his chest. “She was entitled.”

“I'm not saying she wasn't.”

Funk's expression softened slightly. I took advantage of it.

“Are you going to let me in?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Aw what the fuck. Why not? It don't make no difference now anyway.”

Except for the fact that there were more beer bottles, the room looked the same as the last time I was there.

“Listen,” he said quickly, “I'm sorry about what happened the other time when you were here. I got upset.”

“It's okay.”

“It's just that I get these spells sometimes.”

“Spells?” I suppose that was as good a word as any for assault.

“Yeah, spells.” Funk scratched his cheek with the edge of his Budweiser can. “Want any?” He lifted up the Bud. “I've got a six pack in the fridge.”

“No thanks.”

Funk shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He remained standing and so did I.

Porter's picture seemed to stare out at me from its frame. I looked away, but the stuffed bats my eyes fell on next were equally disturbing. I went back to looking at Porter. It was the lesser of the two evils. I reached for a cigarette, then remembered Funk didn't allow smoking and stopped. “So why did Marsha come back early from her mother's house?” I asked him.

“She wanted to see me. She wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Things,” Funk said cryptically. He finished off his beer and crushed the can. It seemed to disappear in his big meaty hand.

I persisted. “What things?”

A rueful expression crossed Funk's face. For a moment his gaze turned inward. He looked as if he were a man who'd seen his dream and lost it. “The store. We talked about how we were going to open the store.”

“She didn't happen to mention anything about the money she owed?”

He frowned. “I already told you she didn't.”

“Or about how she was going to settle her debt with Fast Eddie?”

“Who's that?”

Funk was a bad liar. I leaned forward. “Come on,” I told him, “don't waste my time—or yours.”

He went for another beer. “Okay,” he allowed after he'd pulled the tab and taken a sip. “Maybe she had a little problem.”

“A thirty-thousand-dollar debt is not a little problem—at least not in my book.”

Funk flushed. “Just because she's dead doesn't mean you can say bad things about her.”

“That wasn't my intention.”

Instead of answering, Funk chewed on the inside of his cheek and studied a stuffed squirrel he'd mounted on the wall. “Everyone makes mistakes,” he said softly after a minute had gone by. I got the idea he was talking about himself as much as about Marsha. “Listen, she wasn't going to gamble anymore. She stopped when she met me and she wasn't going to start again either.”

“And you believed her?”

“Yeah, I did. Things were gonna be okay.” Funk was indulging in magical thinking, a process I knew too well. You wanted something to happen, so you thought it would. But who knew? Maybe in this case I was wrong. Maybe Marsha would have started a new life—if she'd gotten the chance.

“What about the money she owed?” I asked.

Funk looked mournful. “I wanted to help her. She wouldn't let me.”

“You mean she wouldn't let you help her blackmail her husband?”

“She wasn't gonna do anything like that,” Funk insisted.

“You're so certain, are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“What about the papers?”

“What papers?”

“The ones Marsha left in school.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Funk's face had taken on a mulish cast.

“Really?” I leaned closer. “Well, I think you're lying. I think you saw that Marsha had forgotten those papers so you took them home. And then maybe she called you and you told her you had them, and she decided to come back to Syracuse early and take another look. Which she did. And that's when she decided she didn't need me. That's when she decided she could get the dogs plus thirty thousand from Merlin on her own.”

“You're crazy!” Funk cried.

“Am I? Tell me why?”

Brandon Funk balled up his hands into fists. “I want you out of here.”

“Or you'll what? Punch me?”

Funk was taking a step toward me when the front door flew open.

E
nid Garriques's voice preceded her into Funk's living room.

“Brandon,” she said. “Mom wants us to—” Then she saw me and stopped. A flustered expression danced across her face. For a second she looked embarrassed, as if she'd been caught doing something déclassé like reading the
National Enquirer;
then her habitual mask of poise returned and she nodded and gave the gracious smile. Like Dylan Thomas's aunt, Enid always did the right thing. “I'm sorry if I seemed startled to see you here,” she told me. “It's just that you never mentioned you knew my brother.” With that she shut the door and walked inside. She looked out of place in Funk's house. Her expensive clothes and carefully styled hair clashed with the surroundings.

“That's because until recently I didn't,” I replied.

She looked around the room and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “People tell me we look alike. What do you think?”

I shook my head. “I don't see it.” And I couldn't.

She smiled briefly. I'd given the right answer. “Neither do I, but that's what they say. I don't know why.” Unconsciously, she adjusted a strand of hair that wasn't out of place before looking at her watch. “I'm sorry to intrude but I'm going to have to drag my brother away. My mom's having the dining room painted tomorrow and I told her Brandon and I would move the table and the sideboard.”

Funk's anger at me had evaporated into sullenness. “Why can't we do it later?” he demanded.

“Because she wants it done now,” Enid answered impatiently, taking no notice of his mood. “She's going to go to bed soon.”

“Oh, all right,” Funk said. Watching him I got the idea his sister ran the show.

Enid went over and straightened the pictures on the mantel. “About the tank,” she said to me.

“Yes,” I replied, figuring she was going to tell me the deal was off.

“I definitely want it.”

“Great.” At least something was working out right.

“What tank?” Funk asked.

“It's Gregory's birthday present,” his sister replied. “And don't you tell him. I don't want you to ruin the surprise.” Enid turned toward me. “He's always saying things he's not supposed to,” she explained.

Funk flushed. “No, I don't,” he protested.

Enid shrugged. “Have it your own way.” She looked around the room. “How can you live like this? All these animals. Those pictures. The past is past, Brandon. You should throw all this stuff out.”

“No!” he cried.

The lines were obviously the beginning of an old, well-rehearsed argument. I left them to it and walked back out to the cab. A hint of rain hung in the air. I couldn't see the stars. Clouds obscured the view. By the time I got home the wind had picked up. As I walked up the driveway I heard two cats yowling under my neighbor's laurel hedge. I put my key in the lock. Zsa Zsa was right in front of the door when I opened it. She jumped up and I rubbed her chest. Then I walked her to the end of the block and back. When I returned I ate a handful of Hershey Kisses, swallowed a couple of vitamins, and went to bed. I fell asleep immediately but woke up again at two with bad dreams, and even though I tried, I couldn't get back to sleep. This no sleeping thing was getting boring.

I ended up sipping Scotch, watching TV, listening to the rain, cataloging my deficiencies—which were legion—and wondering how I'd come to make such a mess of my life. Then I started thinking about Marsha and the mess she'd made of her life, and I decided that maybe I hadn't done so badly after all. At least I hadn't been terminally stupid. Why the hell had she been out at the reservoir anyway? That really bothered me. And it kept bothering me. I couldn't let go of the problem. Finally I decided that seeing the site in the daylight might help me make sense of what had happened. Then because I was feeling the kind of lonely you get to feeling right before the sun comes up, I called George and asked him if he wanted to come along.

“Do you know what time it is?” he groaned.

“About five-thirty.”

“Jesus, I went to bed at three.”

“Go back to bed.” Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

“No.” He sounded resigned. “As long as you got me up I might as well come. I'm curious, too.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.”

“Good. I'll be over in ten minutes.”

“Make it fifteen and bring some coffee.”

“You got a deal.”

I went upstairs and changed into jeans and a black cotton turtleneck. Then I went back downstairs and put on my sneakers. Zsa Zsa wagged her tail as I went by, but she didn't get up. I guess she was sleeping in. It was cool and damp outside. The sidewalk was still wet from last night's storm. Rain drops dripped from the leaves of the flowering crab trees. Its downed petals littered the grass. The sky was streaked with purple-edged clouds. In a few minutes the sun would be up. A crow hopped along the grass. He ignored me till I got about five feet away; then he cawed and flew up to the roof of the house across the street. I got in the cab, drove to the AM Mini Mart, bought two cups of coffee, and cruised over to George's place.

“Be careful. It's hot,” I warned as I handed him his cup.

He grunted and took a sip. “God this stuff sucks.”

“I know.” It tasted as if it had been brewing for the past four hours.

“Where'd you get it?”

“From the Mini Mart over on Delphi.”

“It figures.” But he took another gulp anyhow.

I snuck a look at George out of the corner of my eye. He hadn't shaved yet. I could see the stubble on his cheeks in the early morning light. He was wearing a stained sweatshirt and a pair of torn jeans. I realized I'd never seen him so disheveled. For some reason the thought that he could actually look like this cheered me enormously.

“Have a hot date last night?” I asked. I kicked myself as soon as the words left my mouth.

George frowned. “Actually I was working on my paper.”

“How's it going?”

“Not well.” He took another sip of coffee. “Listen,” he began.

“Yes?”

“You know the offer you made?”

“About helping you?”

“I don't want you to write it for me.”

“I wasn't intending to.”

“But maybe if you could show me a couple of things ...” His voice trailed off.

“Sure. Anytime.”

“I'll call.”

“Whenever you're ready.”

I couldn't see the expression on George's face because he was looking out the window.

“Beginnings are always hard,” I told him.

He grunted and I shut up. The conversation had gone about as far as it was going to go. We finished the drive to the turnoff in silence. In the pale morning light the path and the trees surrounding it looked sad, as if they knew they'd been abandoned. The scarred white birch trunks leaned this way and that, anemic matchsticks surrounded by puddles of stagnant water and small middens of beer cans, potato chip and Taco Bell bags.

“Watch the rock,” George warned when we'd gone about fifty feet.

“I see it.”

How could I not? It was right in the middle of the road. I could have probably gone over it—the cab's suspension was higher than that of most cars—but I didn't want to take the chance of ending up with a broken spring.

“I guess we walk,” I said, stepping on the brake.

We got out. For some reason it felt colder here and I shivered in the chill morning air. We walked along the path in silence. It was muddy and my sneakers made a squishing sound whenever I took a step. When we got to the reservoir I stopped to study the ground. It was littered with Styrofoam cups and beer cans and small blackened areas where kids had lit camp fires.

“What are we looking for?” George asked.

“Some sort of evidence that Estrella was here.”

George chewed on the inside of his cheek while he thought. Then he pointed to a cluster of scrub trees on the other side of the water. “That might be a good place to start.”

George was right. It would be. The murderer wouldn't have been able to see Estrella, but she could have seen him. We walked over. The place had obviously been in use for a while. There were indentations in the ground from where sleeping bags had lain. Someone had made a fireplace with a circle of stones. The earth in the middle was blackened. I kicked one of the beer cans scattered along the ground. An edge of something blue hidden in the bushes caught my eye. I pulled it out. It was a folder with Wellington scrawled across the front. I opened it up. Aside from the words “social studies” written on a blank piece of paper it was empty.

George nudged a Southern Comfort bottle with his foot. “I used to drink this when I was a kid.”

“I think we all did,” I said as I squatted down and began to search the ground.

George joined me, but after twenty minutes he and I were forced to concede defeat. The only things we'd come up with were sodden take-out containers, one size-ten Nike sneaker, a pair of jeans, and a dirt-encrusted green sweatshirt.

“Did Estrella have any friends?” George asked as he stood up.

“Only one that I know of. A kid by the name of Pam Tower.”

“Do you have an address on her?”

“She's a runaway.”

“Great.”

“Could be worse. Manuel spotted her working at Eats Galore over on Westcott Street.”

“Have you spoken to her yet?”

I shook my head. “She wasn't at the restaurant when I dropped by.”

“Estrella might have told her something.”

“The thought had occurred to me.” I turned and began walking along the reservoir's outer perimeter. Estrella had to have left some evidence she'd been here somewhere. I'd gone halfway around when I saw an opening in the woods. “Where does that go?” I asked George.

He shook his head. “I didn't even know it was there.”

“Well, let's find out.” I started down. George joined me a moment later.

The path gave evidence of being well traveled. It was littered with broken beer bottles and more torn cups. Graffiti stained the rock where it forked. We followed both branches. One led to LeMoyne College while the other let out farther down onto Thompson Road. From there it was just a two-minute walk down to Erie Boulevard.

Suddenly I had an idea. “The Pancake Palace is right near where the path comes out,” I told George.

“So?”

“So maybe Marsha and her murderer met in the restaurant's parking lot. Remember you said a lot of teachers from Wellington eat breakfast there.”

“It's possible,” he agreed. “The place does open early. People come and go there all the time. A car in the lot wouldn't excite much notice.”

George and I exchanged glances and headed back to the car. It looked as if we were going to pay a visit to The Pancake Palace on our way home. The parking lot was almost empty when I pulled in. Sea gulls strutted back and forth looking for scraps. It was odd seeing them so far from the ocean, but they'd been on Erie Boulevard for years. Maybe they'd gotten stranded up here the same way I had and couldn't find their way home.

“Let me do the talking,” I said to George as I turned off the engine.

He shrugged. “It's your show.”

To emphasize the point, once we got in the restaurant he headed over to the counter and ordered two cinnamon rolls and a couple of coffees to go while I asked the two waitresses on duty if anyone remembered seeing Marsha.

Both of them had. It turned out Marsha Pennington was a regular.

“She came in two to three times a week and got an English muffin, orange juice, and coffee,” the waitress with a strawberry birthmark across the lower part of her left cheek informed me. I noticed that she kept that side of her face slightly tilted away from me. “She used to sit over there.” She pointed to an empty table over by the far window. “It's too bad about what happened.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed.

Unfortunately neither of the waitresses could remember if Marsha Pennington had been in the day she died.

“The days all kind of run into one another,” the waitress I was talking to explained. “I mean, I can't even recall what I had for dinner last night let alone whether or not someone was in a couple of weeks ago.”

“Did she have any specific days she came in on?”

The waitress shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”

I cast around for another way to help her remember. “Did she usually come in with somebody?”

“Once in awhile, but mostly she came in alone.” The waitress looked around the room checking to see if anyone needed her. “She'd order her breakfast and read her paper. Then she'd leave. She didn't tip real well. None of these teachers do.”

“Anything else?” I asked, grasping at straws.

“Well, there was something.” The waitress tapped her nails on the edge of the chair she was standing next to. “It wasn't a big thing. I just remember it because I had never seen the other lady before. She didn't wait to be seated or anything. She just walked over to Mrs. Pennington's table and stood there. The next thing I know they was arguing.”

“About what?”

“I don't know. I couldn't hear.”

“Then how do you know they were fighting?”

“I could tell from their faces and the way they were waving their arms.”

“Then what happened?”